Arapaima Pond Build

Some of you might have seen my thread on an Arapaima that came swimming into my life.
The whole story can be viewed in another thread, just check my threads and you'll see it there.

To cut it short, Mr. T. is doing well it seems, settling in surprisingly well in his temporary pond at work.

So now, I have the urgent and monumental task ahead to build a pond at my house as his permanent home.

I bought a 2nd house this week, next to my current one, with plans to renovate it over the coming years. With Mr. T. suddenly showing up, I have no choice but to start with the pond first instead of last.
The pond will be inbetween the two houses which will give it good protection from too much sun, wind and birds/cats and crawlers here in Thailand.

Let's try to get some numbers going for pond I have in mind.
First phase would be rectangular pond.
20 ft long, 6 foot wide. I think max I could go is about 3 to 4 foot deep, unless I tear out the drain in the second house and rerouting it somehow. It's a 15-20" concrete pipe that would go through the full length of the pond.
Since the second house will be torn apart for most of it, it would be possible to do that. Should be possible to connect to the drain of my current house, leaving the pond free to go to about 5 ft deep.

In a later extension, I can double the size of the pond by tearing out the concrete wall between the houses, digging out my current garden there and make the same pond there.
Lower the water in the existing pond, support the liner with a temp. steel construction, break out the separation wall, put a new bigger liner in the existing pond, roll it out under the Pima and up again, then remove the steel support and roll it out further.
Final pond would then be 10 ft x 20 ft. That's the maximum size I can do. Half at 5 ft deep, the other half at 4 ft.

1/3rd of the pond will be covered by a wood deck and rest open with planters hanging in the water at the sides to provide hiding space and 'barriers'.
Since its in between to houses, literally wall to wall pond with a wood deck bridge over it to the front.

The pond, as said, will be liner, which I think is the surest and fastest way to get it up and running, with rebar-concrete walls just to support the shape and keep the surrounding sand/soil in its place.

Filtration will be a later issue, I'm thinking of using a drain-pump and several plastic barrels filled up with floss and bio-balls, gravity fed back into the pond.

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have 30 tanks, onces set up now are four 20G one 20L one 10. but have tanks from 5 gallons up to four 55s

i originally thought that that was a pretty large pond for one fish until i actually looked up what an Arapaima is. those guys get huge! i assume that you also plan to stock the pond with something he gets to eat; what did you have in mind?

Well, some time ago I posted, but since Mr.T. Is doing really well, but finances not that good, we decided to go for the company pond, which will be a liner pond, for which the basic pond can be done for less than 500 USD.
Pond size will be about 9x4 at water surface, sloping to a 6x3 at the bottom. Rounded corners and walls around it from the dirt that comes out from digging. Water Surface about 60cm above the ground and a large filter area with plants in small stones

Ok, promised pictures of the pond area and the digging done so far.
A concrete wall of 50-60cm high above the pavement, same 50cm below the pavement as the front.
Then behind that wall, liner-pond with deepest point about 120-130 cm, various levels, of dept.
Filter will be a drain-pump at the front, long hose to the back-side, feeding 2 drums to filter the rubbish out.
From there, it will be gravity fed back into the pond.
Deepest point is right behind the concrete wall, so all rubbish will collect there for easy cleaning.

You see that the temporary sandbag-pond is in the middle of the new pond.
When part of the concrete-wall is finished, we will put the liner in, then make a small opening in the old pond and let Mr. T find his way into the deeper new pond.
Will be nerve-testing job, but I think by lowering the water, then removing the sand bags, and then slowly lifting the far side of the old liner to push him to that opening.
From there, he will slide into the new pond, which we then backup with sandbags before starting to dig the second section.
Once the second section is complete, we can start rolling out the rest of the liner and fill up the rest of the pond.

Will be quite some planning to do, might take some time to finish all.

Still not sure about putting an area in that's only 20-40 cm deep for smaller fish with lots of plants for bio-filtration.
Maybe even above the waterline as a 'trickle or overflow' type of filter. Area of 3-4 square meter. Could make it filled with guppies and gravel, putting the plants in the gravel.
Water flowing in and then dropping over a wall into the main pond...

That can easily be done later..for now, hope tomorrow to get started on the concrete wall.
Cheers,
Luc

For the bottom drain, I checked and took some Aludur ducts apart.
these are 16" square plates with 4 x 4" ducts pop-nailed to the plate.
Each duct is about 1.5" high, connected with a 1.2" flang to the main plate.
If I'd leave all the ducts attached to the board, I can use a simple 4" PVC elbow and 4" Drain pipe that I epoxy to one of the ducts.
Then poor concrete around it, but also inside the 3 remaining ducts.
I can then use the a second plate with all the ducts removed as the top plate over the liner.
Or I could use a plastic plate...as a top...

Question is, given that this is Aluminium, but only very small area exposed to the water, would it be safe?
I think the effect would be almost zero, with water changes and the large volume of water.
And Aluminium at least doesn't rust away.

Appreciate your input.
For the pop nails sticking out, the one where the drain is connected, I grind them out after the concrete is poorer and dry. They don't serve a purpose anymore by then and the holes would make for perfect pilot holes to guide the screws straight in.

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